He lost the bet but won the heart of a pretty girl

By KIMBERLY DISHONGH Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Posted: June 29, 2014 at 2:18 a.m.

“You know, I don’t think he ever did give me permission,” Pete Wells reflects, on asking Sissy Joiner’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. “But he never did say no, so I assumed that that was a yes.”

Pete Wells blindly picked Sissy Joiner's name from a string of others, then quickly bet his friend $1 that she would be uglier than the girl he'd got. Such was the cynicism that pervaded his lovelorn days, pre-Sissy.